Chelsea news: Ruben Loftus-Cheek opens up on his new position

Chelsea had a difficult assignment in the FA Cup, with the Blues twice coming from behind to secure an important victory. Thomas Tuchel’s side fell behind inside the opening two minutes when Reece Burke headed home to give a dream start to Luton Town. Saul Niguez equalised on 27 minutes before Harry Cornick restored Luton’s lead five minutes before the interval. However, a spirited second-half comeback from Chelsea saw them get two goals through Timo Werner and Romelu Lukaku to seal their passage into the quarter-finals. After the match, Ruben Loftus-Cheek expressed his satisfaction with the win and how tough an assignment they had in hand in order to come from behind and secure the win.

“It was very tough, especially going down quite early and the fans getting behind them,” he said, as quoted by their club’s website. “You saw in the players’ eyes that it gave them a lot of hope and that’s what we didn’t want early on. We wanted to keep the fans quiet and show what we’re about early on so we could kind of diminish their hope of getting a result. To go 2-1 down as well, it was a difficult night but credit to the boys that we clawed our way back and got the job done in the end.

“It’s enjoyable to play in a game like this with these conditions. It doesn’t really look enjoyable to play in, but when the conditions are like this and the stadium’s loud, that’s what you want to play in as a footballer. It’s a very nice experience to play in when you look back at it, so well done to the boys and we’re into the next round. The Chelsea fans were fantastic, we heard them throughout and they gave us the support we needed to claw our way back. So thank you to the Chelsea fans.”

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Ruben Loftus-Cheek played as a centre-back

For the FA Cup clash, Tuchel had made nine changes to his starting line-up following Sunday’s Carabao Cup final defeat against Liverpool. Injuries further restricted Tuchel’s options, which was evident in the defensive changes. As a result, Loftus-Cheek took up an unfamiliar defensive role, playing at the centre of the back three.

“It came as a surprise to me! I found out the day before that I might have to do a job there. A lot of our defenders have got niggles and there’s some players who played 120 minutes plus penalties at the weekend. You have to do a job where you get put and I still tried to bring my qualities and what makes me Loftus-Cheek to the game. That’s all I could do but I really enjoyed it,” he explained.

“I played centre-back when I was 12 or 13, for a season or two, and I never liked it! But tonight was a bit different, I played as a centre-back in a back four when I was younger. This time I had more licence to step out and create the attack from the start, so I enjoyed it.”